Hyper Gentle Breaker is a hoverboard sim. Technically, it’s a third-person roguelite journey set in a luminous fantasy-cyberpunk universe, however after enjoying a 30-minute preview, it’s clear to me that Hyper Gentle Breaker is all concerning the hoverboard. Vicious beasts, secret alcoves and glossy weapons are secondary to the sensation of gliding over inexperienced hills and shallow waters on my glowing blue slab, discovering pleasure in narrowly avoiding enemy encounters.
Deliberately skipping battles was most likely the alternative of what lead animator Chris Bullock needed me to do through the first public hands-on alternative with Hyper Gentle Breaker — but when that had been the case, then he shouldn’t have informed me concerning the hoverboard.
Hyper Gentle Breaker is about to go stay in early entry on Steam this summer time, full with three-player on-line co-op. Builders at Coronary heart Machine are letting folks play it for the primary time at Day of the Devs: San Francisco Version, which is held along with GDC this week. I performed a distant preview of the sport at dwelling, solo type, whereas Bullock watched on Discord (and possibly cringed a complete lot).
Breaker is an open-world recreation with a hub station referred to as the Cursed Outpost, a futuristic strip mall with retailers, improve stations and NPCs. I briefly explored the outpost, however the bulk of the sport performs out within the Overgrowth, a panorama of ever-shifting biomes, and I targeted on diving into these. Biomes within the Overgrowth are constructed with hand-crafted and procedurally generated parts in order that gamers won’t ever enter the identical realm twice, and each has a boss to defeat referred to as a Crown. Regardless of my need to peacefully hoverboard by means of the half-hour demo, I messed round with two loadouts, took out a number of slime hordes and twice tried to slay a type of Crowns — an enormous bipedal wolf warrior with a golden sword named Dro.
In each of my battles with Dro, she began attacking immediately and with unbelievable pressure, swinging her blade wildly as she leapt in a large arc throughout a temple and straight onto my head. I dodged and tried to replenish her stagger meter by touchdown primary assaults with my sword and firearm, however the wolf was relentless, particularly in contrast with the essential enemies I simply dispatched across the biome.
Dro defeated me twice. On the finish of every struggle, I heard the sport’s siren music luring me in, making me consider I may beat the massive dangerous wolf subsequent time, if I simply employed an up to date technique. Parrying was key on this struggle, in line with Bullock.
“Her first opening assault, you instantly went for the parry on that,” Bullock stated as I ready to struggle the boss once more. “I really like that you just picked that up straight away; that was the intention on that one.”
The parry had been an accident on my half, however I’d instantly seen how efficient it was, giving me a half-second on the very starting of the encounter to step again and strategize. What I’d skilled with the parry was a fury assault, Bullock defined. Some beasts in Hyper Gentle Breaker glow crimson after which carry out huge strikes that need to be completely parried with a view to cancel out the injury, reverse a projectile or stun the enemy. With a fury assault, a non-perfect parry will mitigate some injury solely.
“That’s positively the design objective, to make the fight clear, know while you’re doing one thing properly,” Bullock stated.
These moments of tactical readability are precisely what makes a roguelike or roguelite addictive. I can see beat the boss; now I simply need to get adequate on the recreation to implement these strikes earlier than I am killed.
There’s no dialogue in Hyper Gentle Breaker, very similar to its predecessor, Hyper Gentle Drifter. Drifter was an extremely fashionable 2D motion RPG that got here out in 2016 after a number of years of crowdfunding and vital hype, and it solidified Coronary heart Machine’s status as a stellar indie studio. Hyper Gentle Breaker is technically a prequel to Drifter, because it’s set 15 years earlier than the occasions of that recreation.
Drifter co-designer Teddy Dief went on to discovered Staff OFK and launch the musical visible novel We Are OFK, whereas lead developer Alx Preston caught with Coronary heart Machine and launched Photo voltaic Ash in 2021. Very like Breaker, Photo voltaic Ash is about in the identical basic universe as Hyper Gentle Drifter, however it’s a vastly completely different recreation and it’s not a direct sequel. Photo voltaic Ash is a third-person motion platformer constructed round an extremely satisfying glide-step mechanic, and its world is crammed with alien environments, large monsters and vaguely threatening deities.
“Hyper Gentle was a approach for me to get began, it was a approach for me to be extra grounded and put collectively a crew and perceive, can I do that? Can I truly make video games?” Preston informed me in 2021, through the lead-up to Photo voltaic Ash’s launch. “And so having answered that query, then the pure subsequent step for me was one thing in 3D. Can I put one thing on the market that basically opens up the world and makes you’re feeling like you possibly can really escape into one thing, a creation that’s otherworldly, that you just in any other case would not have the expertise of? Lots of my childhood was spent escaping into these greater experiences.”
Breaker seems like the right amalgamation of Hyper Gentle Drifter and Photo voltaic Ash. Substitute the Photo voltaic Ash ice skates with a hoverboard, add some mates and also you’re set. Builders at Coronary heart Machine plan to maintain Hyper Gentle Breaker in early entry for a few 12 months, although they famous that this timeline may change with participant suggestions.
The total launch of Hyper Gentle Breaker will assist as much as three gamers in on-line co-op, and it’ll have a handful of characters to select from, every with customizable loadouts. I attempted out a primary, slashy blade and a hefty buster sword, plus a typical rifle and a shotgun-type firearm, and so they every carried out properly, although I ran out of ammo rapidly and sometimes. The heavy sword was slower than the easy blade, however it moved easily and hit exhausting. Within the Cursed Outpost earlier than loading up a brand new biome, I used to be additionally in a position to choose 4 talents referred to as Holobytes from a few dozen choices, equivalent to elevated armor or quicker therapeutic. My favourite trait was the blooming corpse seed, which planted an exploding AOE flower on the our bodies of slain enemies.
However as soon as Bullock informed me that hoverboarding was an choice, it was all I needed to do. I spent a superb chunk of my Hyper Gentle Breaker demo time gliding alongside the brilliant inexperienced grass, touchdown small jumps and infrequently falling right into a pond. I’m nonetheless itching to search out Dro once more and fine-tune my parrying talents throughout a variety of weapons (and corpse flowers). Principally although, I’ll be dreaming of that shiny blue board till Hyper Gentle Breaker hits early entry this summer time.
